Ukraine marks anniversary of Nazi massacres in Kiev

KIEV, Ukraine -- Weeping survivors clutching red carnations paid tribute Thursday to tens of thousands of Jews massacred by the Nazis 64 years ago at the ravine known as Babi Yar.

At a memorial park erected at the chasm just outside Kiev's city center, about 200 people bowed their heads and laid flowers at the bronze monument marking the area where the killings took place in September 1941. Senior Jewish community leaders bemoaned the fact that some of the country's most senior leaders were unable to attend.

"People must understand that this tragedy is important, not only for Jewish people, but also for all Ukrainians," Ukraine's chief rabbi Yakov Blaikh told The Associated Press after the ceremony. "If children learned a lesson from history, no skinheads would attack people on the streets."

The massacre began when Nazi forces occupying Kiev marched Jews to the brink of the ravine and shot them. More than 33,700 were killed in just a few days. The killings continued for months, with Nazis also executing thousands of Red Army prisoners of war and resistance fighters.

The Babi Yar massacre followed weeks of grenade attacks against German troops staged by Soviet resistance groups. Nazis accused Jews for the attacks, and ordered them to gather in downtown Kiev and to take with them documents, money, valuables and warm clothes as if they were to be deported.

The final death toll was never established, since the Nazis destroyed thousands of bodies, but it was believed to be more than 100,000.

"It reminds everybody that, if misanthropy is not stopped, it can result in a big tragedy irrespective of your ethnicity or religion," said Mikhail Frenkel, a Jew whose aunt survived the massacre.

The site also was a monument to Soviet-era silence about the killings. For two decades, there was no marker until Yevgeny Yevtushenko drew international attention to it and to Soviet anti-Semitism in his 1961 poem, "Babi Yar."

When a monument finally went up, it referred only to the "people of Kiev" who had been executed -- not to the Jews.

"Our memory must become a warning for those who want to sow discord in our multiethnic family," President Viktor Yushchenko said in a statement posted on his Web site. He did not attend the ceremony because he is suffering from a cold, his office said.

Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn was the highest-ranking Ukrainian official present. He watched silently as giant flower wreaths were placed at the foot of the statue.

Ukraine's Jewish community has grown increasingly frustrated after a handful of high-profile attacks on Jews this year, which police have labeled hooliganism. Skinheads attacked a Ukrainian rabbi and his 14-year-old son, and in a separate attack severely beat a Jewish student. Jewish leaders insist the attacks were religiously motivated.

Ukraine is home to 100,000 Jews, who have called on the government to do more to discourage anti-Semitism.